Last night I saw one of the worst movies I ever saw. Waterhole # 3, widely panned by critics when it came out in 1967--I read AFTER viewing it--is somehow praised on IMDb by people who differ from my viewpoint.
My take: We see 1800s soldiers moving a heavy box into a storage shed, guarded by Claude Aikins, an Army sergeant. Next door is a shoemaker's shop, where the shoemaker is forced into a hole in the floor, that we quickly learn leads to a tunnel through which this box, containing 100 lbs of gold, in four bars, has been stolen almost as soon as it was placed in the storage shed.
A separate--supposedly--scene takes place in a bar where James Coburn plays a card sharp who gets in a dispute with a man who then wants a showdown--drawing guns on each other in the street. Coburn exits the saloon on being called out by the man, walks away from him, apparently not interested in a gunfight, then goes behind his horse, whips out a rifle and shoots the man dead from behind the horse--not at all a fair fight, but murder.
The man he killed was involved in the gold heist, and on his body is a map Coburn finds, when he steals money from the dead man's body--somehow, nobody else in the town gathers around at all.
Coburn is next seen in a town where Carrol O'Connor (Archie Bunker) is the sheriff. He gets the drop on the sheriff (who knows he's wanted for murder) locks him and his deputy up in the jail and has them take off all their clothes. Somehow, the two lawmen are too embarrassed to yell for help, so that lets Coburn escape, heading for the sheriff's house to steal, apparently, the only good horse in town, from the sheriff.
While in this act, Coburn bumps into the sheriff's grown-up daughter, in the barn. He almost immediately goes after her, she tries to resist and we are treated to seeing the beginnings of a rape scene--the film makes it clear without nudity. Next scene, she emerges from the barn in the morning, now happy about the whole thing, yet still willing to tell Daddy that she was raped.
In a broad farce, a rape "could" possibly come off as funny. But there was too much seriousness here to make this the least bit funny. It was painful to watch as he chased her around the barn then pulled her down and started forcing her to kiss him. There was no humor here at all.
When she tells Daddy what happened (he got clothes from someone else) he was more upset that his horse was stolen than that his daughter's virtue was trashed. He goes after Coburn, and the rest of the film features long chases through the desert and many switches of possession of the stolen gold between Coburn and O'Connor's characters, who join together, inexplicably, and the original thieves.
The biggest flaw here was that there was nobody likable in the show. We need to have some reason to root for someone, but we didn't. So there was no reason to care about who wound up with the gold.
I think I smiled once or twice, but nothing in the entire film generated even a chuckle.
Believe-ability is also important. If the sarge in charge of guarding the gold is IN on the plot to steal it, why on earth did they need a tunnel to steal it in the first place? Just have the people taking it slip in when the sarge is the only guard around.
So, the comedy was totally missing, the drama was a bore, and the notion that rape is a minor offense is offensive; those together force me to give it my rarest rating--a one.
My take: We see 1800s soldiers moving a heavy box into a storage shed, guarded by Claude Aikins, an Army sergeant. Next door is a shoemaker's shop, where the shoemaker is forced into a hole in the floor, that we quickly learn leads to a tunnel through which this box, containing 100 lbs of gold, in four bars, has been stolen almost as soon as it was placed in the storage shed.
A separate--supposedly--scene takes place in a bar where James Coburn plays a card sharp who gets in a dispute with a man who then wants a showdown--drawing guns on each other in the street. Coburn exits the saloon on being called out by the man, walks away from him, apparently not interested in a gunfight, then goes behind his horse, whips out a rifle and shoots the man dead from behind the horse--not at all a fair fight, but murder.
The man he killed was involved in the gold heist, and on his body is a map Coburn finds, when he steals money from the dead man's body--somehow, nobody else in the town gathers around at all.
Coburn is next seen in a town where Carrol O'Connor (Archie Bunker) is the sheriff. He gets the drop on the sheriff (who knows he's wanted for murder) locks him and his deputy up in the jail and has them take off all their clothes. Somehow, the two lawmen are too embarrassed to yell for help, so that lets Coburn escape, heading for the sheriff's house to steal, apparently, the only good horse in town, from the sheriff.
While in this act, Coburn bumps into the sheriff's grown-up daughter, in the barn. He almost immediately goes after her, she tries to resist and we are treated to seeing the beginnings of a rape scene--the film makes it clear without nudity. Next scene, she emerges from the barn in the morning, now happy about the whole thing, yet still willing to tell Daddy that she was raped.
In a broad farce, a rape "could" possibly come off as funny. But there was too much seriousness here to make this the least bit funny. It was painful to watch as he chased her around the barn then pulled her down and started forcing her to kiss him. There was no humor here at all.
When she tells Daddy what happened (he got clothes from someone else) he was more upset that his horse was stolen than that his daughter's virtue was trashed. He goes after Coburn, and the rest of the film features long chases through the desert and many switches of possession of the stolen gold between Coburn and O'Connor's characters, who join together, inexplicably, and the original thieves.
The biggest flaw here was that there was nobody likable in the show. We need to have some reason to root for someone, but we didn't. So there was no reason to care about who wound up with the gold.
I think I smiled once or twice, but nothing in the entire film generated even a chuckle.
Believe-ability is also important. If the sarge in charge of guarding the gold is IN on the plot to steal it, why on earth did they need a tunnel to steal it in the first place? Just have the people taking it slip in when the sarge is the only guard around.
So, the comedy was totally missing, the drama was a bore, and the notion that rape is a minor offense is offensive; those together force me to give it my rarest rating--a one.